Hope & Co. was a Dutch bank that existed for two and a half centuries. The bank was located in Amsterdam until 1795; originally it concentrated on Great Britain. From 1750 it played a major part in the finances of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) through Thomas Hope and his brother Adrian. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) the Hope brothers profited from the Netherlands' neutral position and became very wealthy. The Hopes became heavily involved in the Dutch Caribbean, and Danish West Indies. They specialised in plantation loans, in which the entire produce of the plantation was remitted to the lender, who would supervise its sale in order to secure repayment. In this way, the Hopes helped the plantation economy to become integrated into a global network of financiers and consumers. The Hope family were among the richest in Europe at the time. The family business focused on financing commercial transactions and especially on issuing money loans to monarchs and governments in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Portugal, Spain, France and America. The bank was famous for having Catherine the Great as its client and Adrian supplied her several times with diamonds.

Six of eight sons of the Scottish merchant Archibald Hope (1664–1743) – Archibald Jr. (1698–1734), Isaac, Zachary, Henry, Thomas (1704-1779), and Adrian (1709–1781) – were merchants of trade. They were active in shipping, storage, insurance, and credit in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In 1720 they barely survived the bubble that led to the passage of the Bubble Act in London. Archibald and Henry invested in the Provinciale Utrechtsche Geoctroyeerde Compagnie (1720-1752). Charles Hope, 1st Earl of Hopetoun was a cousin.

In this early period the Hope brothers made money organizing shipment for Quakers and Swiss Mennonites out of Rotterdam (under the direction of Archibald, Isaac and Zachary). The top years for the transport of migrants to Pennsylvania were 1738, 1744, 1753 and 1765. These transports were paid for by the city of Rotterdam and the local Mennonite church.

In 1743 the brothers inherited a fortune from their father. For many years the brothers traded with Saint Petersburg, Bilbao, Cadix and Sint Eustatius which became a free port in 1756. The Hopes traded in sugar, cocoa beans, tobacco and timber, especially sailing masts from the Baltic states. In 1750, Stadtholder William IV appointed Thomas as his representative in the meeting of directors of the West India Company (WIC), but it ended the year after when all the appointments were reverted. In 1752, he became a member of the "Lords XVII", the managers of the VOC. Four years later Thomas represented Anne of Hanover in the VOC. The company moved to Keizersgracht in 1758. The firm operated as agents to the British government which supplied loans to Frederick the Great during the Seven Years' War. The turnover raised from 10 to 37 million between 1755-1762. In October 1759 and March 1760 the Hope brothers bought at auction from the Dutch East India Company a massive 595,879 pounds of tea, at a cost of more than one million guilders. There is no doubt that they intended to flood the North American market.

In 1762 when Jan (John) and his nephew Henry Hope (1736–1811) joined Hopes, the name was changed to Hope & Co and a new era began. From that time the firm concentrated on banking. They expanded the offices in Amsterdam, totalling 26 people. Their turnover reached 47 million guilders in 1762. This peak was followed by a sharp decline in 1763 and 1764, when the figures were 42 and 33 million guilders respectively. During the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763 Hope & Co helped out Leendert Pieter de Neufville. Henry's first substantial foreign loan was to Adolf Frederick of Sweden in 1768; in the next twenty years, Sweden was to borrow a total of 15 million guilders (securitised foreign loans); in 1770-1771 to the kings of Bavaria and Prussia.

The Hope Company cooperated with Alexander Fordyce and Gurnell, Hoare, & Harman in 1770. In 1771 George Colebrooke and James Cockburn, directors of the EIC, recruited Paul Wentworth (spy) to borrow £66,000 from Hope & Co. In 1771 Adrian Hope bought together with Andries Pels negotiaties for 904,000 guilders. Hope & Co suffered from the crisis of 1772 and the fall of the EIC-stocks. The turnover with the Amsterdam Exchange Bank plummeted from more than 50 million guilders in 1772 to 30 million in 1773. In 1774 Fordyce was forced to sell his estate to Sir Joshua Vanneck, 1st Baronet; the plaintiffs were Hope & Co and Harman and Co. George Colebrooke went bankrupt.

Though primarily interested in trade deals from the start of their activities, the Hope brothers expanded their interests to longer-term investments in land and the arts. During the 18th century Hope & Co. set up a profit sharing agreement for the partners to reduce the risk of bankruptcy of the entire firm due to the indiscretions of one member, as happened in the case of rival banking house Clifford in 1772. In order to become partner in the profit sharing scheme, the member had to learn the special Hope & Co. bookkeeping method developed by Adrian Hope, who had assisted filing the Clifford bankruptcy.

In March 1781 Adrian Hope died without offspring; the heirs paid a small amount on inheritance tax, which was regarded as fraud. Hope & Co. threatened to move the company to Ostend. The company lend an enormous amount of money to Charles III of Spain. For Spain Hope organised state loans for nine million guilders in the 1780s.